Rarest of all things on earth is the union in which both, by
their contrasts, make harmonious their blending; each supplying
the defects of the helpmate, and completing, by fusion, one
strong human soul.
- [Wedlock]

Reading without purpose is sauntering, not exercise. More is got
from one book on which the thought settles for a definite end in
knowledge, than from libraries skimmed over by a wandering eye.
A cottage flower gives honey to the bee, a king's garden none to
the butterfly.
- [Reading]

Refuse to be ill. Never tell people you are ill; never own it to
yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should
resist on principle at the onset.
- [Health]

Remedy your deficiencies, and your merits will take care of
themselves. Every man has in him good and evil. His good is his
valiant army, his evil is his corrupt commissariat; reform the
commissariat and the army will do its duty.
- [Character]

Remember Talleyrand's advice, "If you are in doubt whether to
write a letter or not, don't!" The advice applies to many doubts
in life besides that of letter-writing.
- [Doubt]

Revenge is a common passion; it is the sin of the uninstructed.
The savage deems it noble; but Christ's religion, which is the
sublime civilizer, emphatically condemns it. Why? Because
religion ever seeks to ennoble man; and nothing so debases him as
revenge.
- [Revenge]

Say what we will, you may be sure that ambition is an error; its
wear and tear of heart are never recompensed--it steals away the
freshness of life,--it deadens its vivid and social
enjoyments,--it shuts our souls to our own youth,--and we are old
ere we remember that we have made a fever and a labor of our
raciest years.
- [Ambition]

Self-confidence is not hope; it is the self-judgment of your own
internal forces in their relation to the world without, which
results from the failure of many hopes and the non-realization of
many fears.
- [Self-confidence]

Shame is like the weaver's thread; if it breaks in the net, it is
wholly imperfect.
- [Shame]

Society is a long series of uprising ridges, which from the first
to the last offer no valley of repose. Whenever you take your
stand, you are looked down upon by those above you, and reviled
and pelted by those below you. Every creature you see is a
farthing Sisyphus, pushing his little stone up some Liliputian
mole-hill. This is our world.
- [Society]

Some have the temperament and tastes of genius, without its
creative power. They feel acutely, but express tamely.
- [Genius]

Sooner mayest thou trust thy pocket to a pickpocket than give
loyal friendship to the man who boasts of eyes to the heart never
mounts in dew! Only when man weeps he should be alone, not
because tears are weak, but they should be secret. Tears are
akin to prayer,--Pharisees parade prayers, imposters parade
tears.
- [Tears]

Strike from mankind the principle of faith, and men would have no
more history than a flock of sheep.
- [Faith]

Strive, while improving your one talent, to enrich your whole
capital as a man. It is in this way that you escape from the
wretched narrow-mindedness which is the characteristic of every
one who cultivates his specialty alone.
- [Study]

Take away the sword;
States can be saved without it; bring the pen.
- [Pen]

Tell me not of the pain of falsehood to the slandered! There is
nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the
application of a rough truth.
- [Vanity]